Theoretically
by howlsatthemoon
Summary: With her hair bright against the city skylights, this life has never seemed so limitless before. / Lily's always leaving Teddy with his heart on the floor.


_Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. I am merely a cyber-hobo who can type remarkably fast._

Hm. I have no idea what possessed me to write this. But I'm also super excited because my birthday is coming up _- _August 2! Virtual cake pleaaase? (Is it wrong that my favourite thing about my birthday is that it's two days after Harry and Jo's?)

x

theoretically

**lily/teddy.  
**_this is the last time that  
I'm ever gonna come here tonight  
_(dishwalla)

She's sitting on the roof. (She's always had a thing for dizzying heights and split-second deaths.) She looks like a demon, with her hair bright against the city skylights, and this life has never seemed so limitless before.

"You walked away before I could finish again," he says, and his voice shows his exhaustion.

She turns around; he tries not to die of loss of breath because damn, she's pretty. "I'm getting tired of you," she retorts, and yes, she acts like she's so much older than she is, and she's _mature_ and _intelligent_ and so very _world-weary_, he gives her that. But see, in her eyes, when you squint and you press her face into your chest and kiss the top of her head like he's done so many times, there's still that child hidden in there who's afraid of the boggarts under her bed and only wants to be saved.

"You're not," he sighs softly, stopping short of her curled-up figure by a few feet. "You could never be."

Her eyes close, her lips purse. "I hate you," she insists, and her hair is picked up by the breeze, flying all around her in this swirl of blood and technicolor.

He squats down so he's smack-dab in front of her, his eyes turning into an unforgivable grey and his hair a streaking comet-tail blue. "We have all the time in forever for hate," he murmurs gently, a hand reaching out to tuck a choppy lock of hair behind her ear. She doesn't pull away at his touch and he moves so his knuckles stroke her jawline tenderly, clucking her under her chin. "But there is never enough love in this world."

"You're being extremely unfair, Lupin," she utters matter-of-factly, standing up and stepping away. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times I love you. And then the minute I _accept_ the fact that you don't want me, you tell me you do." Angrily, she wipes away a rebellious tear that had slipped through her mask. "Make up your mind, will you?"

Teddy runs a hand through his hair, inches closer until he can hear the tears that slide down her cheeks. "You tell me," he whispers. "Say the word, and I will walk away. I will walk away and never come back and never ever bother you ever again. I will love you and you can love anybody else that you ever want. I promise you, Lily, say the word and I will give you whatever you want, alright?"

She narrows her eyes, and then throws up her arms. "But see, that's _not fair_!" she screams at him, and the force of her is enough to echo, like fireworks shooting into this dreary night sky and sprinkling everywhere, scattered remains of what was. "I don't want to tell you to walk away now and wonder what could have been," she confesses mildly. "But I don't want to tell you I love you and have you leave in the morning." She looks unbelievably tiny in that short little dress and her worn leather jacket, the stars illuminating them both on this flat roof.

"I could never leave you, Lily, if you wanted me to stay," he breathes.

"That's a lie," she spits back hotly, and there's that temper, resurfacing like a solar flare.

His hair changes slowly into a jaded green the colour of his eyes. His words can never say what his actions prove. Quiet, they stand there, an unorganised staring match, always waiting for the other to break.

"This is it, then," she says, more of a question than the statement she'd intended for it to be. "This is where the road forks, then, is it, Teddy?" He's still not talking and it's eating away at her inside because whenever she dreamt of this, whenever she imagined it, he was always _fighting for her _and why doesn't this ever happen in real life?

"Only if you want it to be," he replies passively, and damn it all, she's so tired of want.

Without a goodbye, without a kiss, without knowing if it ever really ended, she grips her wand in her pocket, closes her eyes, Apparates away.

Left alone in this God-forsaken silence, he stares at the spot where she had just stood, pondering wordlessly. After taking a deep breath, changing his hair back into its average brown, he tucks away the disappointment for a rainy day, and goes back inside. Alone. Always alone.


End file.
